A NEW parish council will be set up for a Sherfield-on-Loddon development after councillors agreed to its name.

Councillors on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council approved a plan to create Sherfield Park Parish Council, at a full council meeting on March 26.

Sherfield-on-Loddon parish councillors applied to the borough council for a separate parish council to be formed because of “distinct differences and needs” between their village and the Sherfield Park community at Taylors Farm.

A consultation period was held in December and January which found that 91 per cent of 323 of respondents supported the creation of a new parish and 76 per cent of respondents supported the name of Sherfield Park Parish Council.

However, Alan Ball, chairman of the existing Sherfield-on-Loddon parish council urged councillors to rethink the recommended name and consider calling it Loddon Valley Parish Council.

He said: “The main reason for this (suggestion of Loddon Valley Parish Council) was to avoid confusion – many Sherfield-on-Loddon residents have been accosted by lost delivery drivers looking for obscure road names to which the response will inevitably be ‘Oh, you don’t want Sherfield-on-Loddon, Sherfield Park actually means Taylors Farm’.

“Also, a requirement of the name is that it has to have some historical/geographical connection with the area. Sherfield Park is the marketing name for the development and any connection with a park is tenuous to say the least but more importantly, Sherfield Park is historically the name of a pre-existing area within Chineham. Does it make any sort of sense to give the parish the same name as an older established area in the adjacent parish?”

Independent councillor for Chineham, Martin Biermann, said he supported the creation of a new parish council, but said the name could cause problems.

Cllr Chris Tomblin, Independent member for Bramley and Sherfield, added: “It is the name that is the issue and there will be confusion with the existing parish council.”

But Chineham councillor, Elaine Still, who lives in Sherfield Park, said that councillors should vote in favour of the recommended name because it is used by the borough council, housing associations and the police.

Cllr Still added: “There is no confusion over the name and the days of a delivery driver needing to ask a passer-by where a specific road might be disappeared years ago.

“Sat Navs have all but eliminated the rolling down of a window to ask directions.”

Forty-four councillors voted in favour of the new name, with four against and four abstaining.